SETPOINT® – Condition monitoring for plant-wide asset health management.

Why SETPOINT® stands out:

• Open Interface
  The SETPOINT® system is the first to offer an open interface for communication of all data, including waveforms, rather than just overall values and statuses.  This fully open protocol affords more flexibility for users.
• Simplicity
  SETPOINT® CMS software has been designed for unmatched ease-of-use.  Its simple “toggle pushbutton” user interface allows you to easily see which plot types have been selected, which points have been selected, which parameters have been selected, and to easily select/de-select attributes without navigating complex menu structures that may normally be hidden.
• Playback
  An innovative playback feature allows historical data to be played back like a video, making it easy to watch how a plot has changed over time and pause at points of interest.  The playback feature is implemented on both static and dynamic plot types to see how a waveform, trend or other data changes over time.
• Near-Lossless Data Compression 
  The SETPOINT® CMS system takes advantage of a powerful firmware capability within the VC-8000 machinery protection system that automatically characterizes complex waveform data based on how much it has changed from prior samples.  Data is characterized in multiple ways – not just overall amplitude, changing speed (delta rpm), and whether in alarm or not.  It can characterize data by changes in vibration phase, frequency content, and many other parameters.  This allows both waveform and static data to be collected and characterized dozens of times each second, yet stored only when a new sample sufficiently differs from a prior sample.  This pioneering technology gives users the best of both worlds: it collects all data, all the time, but only stores it when a sufficiently large difference exists between a new sample and prior samples, providing highly effective and near-lossless data compression that does not discard valuable information.
• The Power of PI®
  OSISoft’s PI System is the world’s most widely used platform for storage and visualization of real time data.  It enjoys over 1400 installations globally in the power generation, hydrocarbon processing, pharmaceutical, food & beverage, forest products, and dozens of other process industries.  This extremely large installed base means that PI has proven itself for decades as a robust real time database suitable for the most critical applications – including nuclear power – with outstanding security models that work seamlessly across firewalls and satisfy even the most demanding IT criteria. SETPOINT® is proud to base the core of our condition monitoring offering on the proven PI System platform, using it as the repository for our condition monitoring data and its powerful Asset Framework (AF) features for organizing measurement points across assets, plants, and enterprises.
• IT Compatibility
  Asking your IT department to endorse yet another application with different server requirements, different remote access requirements, and different security models can be daunting.  Because the PI System is so widely used, chances are that your company is already using PI.  Thus, you can simply extend your existing PI System rather than qualifying and deploying a different system.  For those customers not already using PI, the SETPOINT® CMS solution can function as a stand-alone package that is minimally intrusive to existing systems and infrastructures while able to satisfy even the most stringent IT requirements.
• Interoperability
  Because the PI System features thousands of engineered software interfaces, it can communicate with virtually every commercially available process control and automation system through an enormous library of PI Interface software available from OSISoft.  This means that users can easily import and export data in real time from the SETPOINT® CMS system so that data from disparate systems can be visualized and analyzed at the same time.
• Affordability
  SETPOINT® CMS software is refreshingly affordable and many installations will see savings exceeding 40% compared to competing systems.  Each VC-8000 machinery protection system incurs a modest per-monitoring-module adder to turn on the rack’s CMS communications port.  Appropriate server software is then installed on the host computer(s), much of which may already be available at sites that are already using PI.  Data visualization is provided through PI ProcessBook® software, and through the SETPOINT® CMS display client (available from our website at no charge).  SETPOINT® CMS software extends the basic data visualization capabilities in PI ProcessBook to encompass the rich suite of plot types pertinent to rotating and reciprocating machinery vibration analysis and condition monitoring.
• Adaptability
  While SETPOINT® CMS software can also be used with machinery protection systems from other suppliers.  Simply use the VC-8000 hardware as a data acquisition interface by connecting to the buffered outputs of the other system.  When it is time to upgrade the underlying machinery protection system, the SETPOINT® system can be left in place and connected directly to the existing transducers, then configured to perform both machinery protection and condition monitoring functions.
• Scalability
  The PI architecture is highly scalable, allowing additional points to be added easily.  These new points can come from additional VC-8000 racks, process points originating elsewhere in the plant, or simply the insertion of additional modules into an existing VC-8000 rack for new channels.  A single server can typically provide adequate storage capacity and data streaming/archiving speeds to address 500 monitoring channels or more.